


Here and There; Then and Now

by MissMollyBloom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Drug Use, F/M, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-01-28 10:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12604444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMollyBloom/pseuds/MissMollyBloom
Summary: Eurus Holmes imagined a world where she had never been born. And in that world, her brother, William Sherlock Scott Holmes never lost his best friend, never locked his emotions away, and never became the World's Only Consulting detective. Eurus could picture all the details of Will Holmes' life so clearly that it soon became clear that Will wasn't a figment of her imagination - Will was real.And if Will was real, Eurus wandered, what would happen if he and Sherlock swapped places?(AKA - Sliding Doors, Sherlolly Style!)





	1. Chapter 1

In a universe of infinite possibilities, where a flip of a coin could change the world, or the beating wings of a butterfly cause a chain reaction that leads stock markets to tumble and world leaders to fall, then, it is entirely possible, Eurus Holmes hypothesised, that there are infinite worlds within an ever-expanding multiverse wherein each of these possible outcomes was recorded. And, if that was true, and the youngest Holmes sibling was certain that it was, then there must be a world entirely like her own except for one chance event – the slip of a scalpel during a routine caesarean birth in 1976. Both mother and child would be healthy – the baby a boy weighing just over 9 pounds -  but no one would ever know that that miniscule action would render the woman unable to have a third child. A daughter never conceived of, never conceived.

As she sat catatonic in her cell in the weeks after calling her brothers to Sherrinford, Eurus was anything but idle. In her mind, she imagined the world so clearly – a world where she was never born.

There, in that world, Will Holmes would remain the baby in the family, a position that here, in her world, Eurus had usurped before her brother had been old enough to realise what had been taken from him. Without the need to stand out as the middle sibling, bright but no supernova like Eurus, Will would remain Will, never stubbornly refusing to respond to anything but his middle name until Sherlock was what he became. Without a troubled younger sister, Will’s childhood would be idyllic – musical recitals with Mycroft, leisurely summers by the sea, and pirate games between Redbeard and Yellowbeard that never were to end in premature tragedy.

As they grew and matured both Will and Mycroft’s paths would be forever altered by the lack of tragedy. Missing that keystone memory that made her Sherlock and Mycroft who they had become - the missing boy, the missing memory, the imagined dog – the path upon which they walked was missing its turning point, the fork in the road that separated the once inseparable brothers.

In Eurus’ world, Sherlock filled that void with puzzles, and when the puzzles weren’t enough, he soon turned to more chemical means of stimulation. First it was Ritalin, scored from kids at school, then amphetamines, cooked himself in a shed in an abandoned corner of their sprawling family acreage. In despair after one near-overdose when he was barely out of middle school, Mycroft, then about to leave for university and unable to protect his brother as he would have wished, counselled his parent to send Sherlock to boarding school. All that did was teach Sherlock how to become a high-functioning drug user, with cocaine being his vice of choice.

Her Mycroft filled that void with food, fad diets, and an eating disorder he hid from the world so successfully that Sherlock himself could not deduce it. Heartbroken by his brother’s broken heart, and broken mind, her Mycroft had taken it upon himself to ensure that Sherlock never again felt the pain of loss, but in so doing almost robbed his brother of the ecstasy of love.

Almost.

The words “I love you” echoed through Eurus’ mind. Spoken three times, just like Peter’s denial of his Lord. And just like Peter, the third time was the one the broke him. Peter wept. For Sherlock, his reaction was much more visceral, sending him falling to the ground as the weight of those words crushed him, and caused him to smash the coffin to shreds.

Mycroft was wrong, though. The words on the coffin lid were never from Molly. The dead don’t speak. The words inscribed in metal weren’t meant for Sherlock, they were from Sherlock. They always had been.

Growing up without a psychopathic sister or an over-protective brother, Will Holmes was free to experience the whole range of human feelings, but, unlike Sherlock, he had the emotional intelligence to process them. Which is how the Sherlock Eurus knew never realised that he had met Molly Hooper years before he first barged into Barts, barking out orders to an anonymous lab technician, who stood silently, absorbing his tirade without the usual petulance he had come to expect from the inept pseudoscientists. She only insisted on one thing. “You could say please, actually.”

Years earlier, this Sherlock didn’t see Molly Hooper across the quad at King’s College. It was early morning, and Sherlock was still coming down from the night before, but knew if he didn’t drag himself into his lab he would be one step closer to expulsion. Sherlock’s head was down, not wanting to catch the glare of the unruly sun as it bounced off the windows of buildings that lined the quad. And so Sherlock never saw her.

But Will did. Will was a morning person, rising early with the sun that Sherlock so keenly despised. Instead of rushing to his lab, he sat on a bench, coffee in hand, and people-watched. It was a hobby of his. He could interpret emotions like it was a secret language. He could read the grief of a breakup in the dark circles under the eyes of the philosophy major. A grief mirrored by the shade of grey in the jacket he had chosen. Not black, but definitely not the kind of colours he had seen the other times their paths had crossed. He was attuned to the quick and awkward gait of the early morning departure from an ill-advised night spent in a classmate’s bed – a common occurrence around University, but not one he had indulged in. Everyone he met wore their inner secrets so clearly for him to read that he could always tell when the tall blonde chatting him up at a party just wanted a quick shag because she thought he was gorgeous, or the short redhead who needed a confidence boost and was hitting on him to get back at an ex, or the virginal type-A den-mother who stumbled over to him because she was drunk and for the first time in her life all her inhibitions had disappeared. It all felt too unseemly to take advantage of what he knew, and what he knew they didn’t know he knew.

Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, had no such qualms. The tall blond who thought he was gorgeous was given another notch on her belt when he took her, swiftly and savagely, in the darkened alcove between two dormitories. The short redhead was given the confidence she desired, multiple times, as he stayed in her room until late in the evening, whispering sweet lies in her ear that evaporated, just like he did, with the first rays of the sun’s morning light. And the virgin, no longer, and would never again let herself lose control after she realised she was one in a long line of girls used up and discarded alongside Sherlock Holmes’ other recreational paraphernalia.

Will hadn’t ever indulged, had never wanted to, but when he spotted the brightly coloured jumper, long hair, wide smile and sad eyes of Molly Hooper, his mind went blank. She was data that didn’t fit any profile. Her clothes radiated joy and positivity, but her small form cried out not to be noticed. Long hair like hers was usually only found on women who were dedicated to the hard work such hair took to maintain, but hers was tied in a haphazard bun, like she almost didn’t realise how long it had gotten. And those eyes, even from across the quad they were so deep, so dark, so hidden by her large smile that no one else would ever know how sad she truly was.

But he knew. He just didn’t know why.

For the first time ever, Will Holmes was intrigued by someone. And the idea was so fascinating in itself that he blew off his class to find out more.

 

* * *

 

 

Day after day, Eurus imagined it all so clearly, as if watching her sisterless-brother’s life play out before her. It was only a matter of time, however, before Eurus realised that imagination was only a pale reflection dimly through a mirror. She wanted the real thing.

And with all the resources of the criminal underworld at her command, and with all the power of the British government just a phonecall away, it would only be a matter of time before Eurus Holmes got her wish. Her words became flesh.

 

**Here**

“Where am I?” Will blinked over and over but his eyes couldn’t adjust to the harshness of the light. His body ached, like every muscle had been stretched to breaking point only to snap back into place.

There was a faint chuckle from across the room. Laughter without mirth. It chilled Will to the core.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but you’re perfect!”

There was an almost childlike glee in the woman’s voice, but the affect and cadence was all wrong, almost as if this person hadn’t ever had a real childhood, let-alone experience anything bordering on happiness, joy, or glee.

Will strained to see where the voice was coming from, but his eyes still failed him. Footsteps fell, and then a hand came out of the glow, reaching out and stroking his face. It felt too familiar to Will, but so unlike the hand that belonged to the one woman who had the right to touch him like that, so Will turned away.

“Tut tut, William,” the woman cooed, “is that any way to treat family?”

“Family?” His eyes narrowed. The only women Will knew as family were his mother – the voice was too old for that – his daughters, and his wife – and he would recognise them in a heartbeat.

“Silly William. I’m your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“You do now.” With that, the lights dimmed enough for Will to make out the long, unkempt back hair, pale face and striking blue eyes of a woman so familiar, like he’d known her in another life.

 

**There**

Sherlock came to with a start. All around the waves crashed around him, his nostrils filling will sea air, his skin rubbed red-raw by the wind.

As he gained his bearing, he looked around to realise that he was on Sherrinford island. Except it wasn’t. The prison which had housed his sister for the better part of two decades was nowhere to be seen. Only the abandoned rock remained.

Instinctively, he reached in his pocket for his phone. If Sherrinford had been destroyed there was only one man who was responsible. He dialed his brother’s number without looking at the screen. In moments it was clear that the task was in vain – no Sherrinford meant no reception.

How the hell was he going to get off this godforsaken rock?

And how on earth did he get there in the first place?


	2. Chapter 2

**There and Then**

Will watched Molly for two days before he finally got the courage to speak to her. He had sat up the back of her lectures, sat across from her in the dining hall, even followed her into a park off campus one afternoon. That was when he realised that he’d better do something before he crossed the line from adorably-besotted to creepy-stalker.

          The opportunity came up the next night. She had gone out for drinks with her roommate, a marketing major named Meena. Will sat across the pub while the two drank and chatted. After half an hour, Meena had disappeared to the loo and Will took a swig of beer – Dutch courage – before walking over to join her.

          He coughed, hoping to get her attention. He was met with those deep brown eyes, the same eyes that had to entranced him when he spotted her across the quad just a few days earlier.

          “I, um... I’m sorry I,” He stammered. He’d never stammered in front of a girl before.

          “Can I help you?” Most people would ask that question in a polite but perfunctory way, not meaning the words truly. But she meant them. She genuinely cared about this stranger who had interrupted her, uninvited.

          “You remind me of my mum.” The words escaping without Will even consciously forming the sentence. It wasn’t much of a pick-up line, and from the slightly terrified look on Molly’s face Will could tell it wasn’t working, either.

          “I’m sorry, I don’t know-“ instinctively she searched around for Meena. Will knew he had time, Meena had been intersected on her way back from the loo by Victor Trevor – the first time he had ever acted as a wingman for Will, rather than the reverse.

          Will decided it was time to commit, no matter how atrocious his opening gambit was. “My mum, she was always happy around us – my brother and me – but sometimes, when she didn’t know I was looking, I could see she looked sad.”

          “Oh, that’s nice-“ Molly smiled, sweetly, but nevertheless still alarmed by the strange personal story being shared by an equally strange man. She grabbed her purse and began to stand when Will’s words cut her off.

          “You look sad, when you think no one can see you.”

          His words stopped her in her tracks. She turned and looked into directly his eyes for the first time. Dark brown pools opened wide and wondering.

          “Are you ok? And don’t just say that you are because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

          “You can see me,” her words were soft, dream-like.

          “I don’t count,” he said, and he meant it.

          “Who are you?” she asked.

          “Will Holmes. And you are?” He asked out of politeness. He had already discovered that she was Molly Hooper, second-year pathology student, on financial aid scholarship, supplemented by work-study that she took sorting through manuscripts in the periodicals stacks, a job she loved because it gave her time alone, and, when things were quiet towards the end of her shift, she’d often take the time to pause and read the index of every title she shelved, making a note in a small journalists pad she kept in her pocket – a list of articles to read later. Once her shift in the library would end, she would find a cosy corner in one of the on-campus cafes and read from whatever periodical took her fancy – Planetology Quarterly, Style Literary Journal, and of course, a large number of Chemistry and Forensic Pathology titles, the latter ones Will had read too.

          Will knew that if he let on all he had gleaned about her in less than one week, it would be enough to have anyone reaching for a phone to call security, or worse, the local P.D.

          “I’m Molly Hooper,” she said, holding out her hand.

          “Pleased to meet you Molly,” he said, and meant more than anything else he’d ever meant in the world. Taking her hand he decided in that instant that he would do anything in his power to never let it go.

**Here and Then**

That same night, Sherlock Holmes was in that same bar, but meeting Molly Hooper was the furthest thing from his mind. His mind was racing, fuelled by the two-day high of his favourite two percent solution of cocaine. He had books to read, exams to cram for, but more than that, Sherlock Holmes loved feeling out of control. Cocaine had the power to push his conscious mind out of the driver’s seat. It also had the unfortunate down side of leaving him to crash and burn. It was the comedown he hated the most, and it was the fear of the inevitable landing that had led Sherlock in search of a new vice.

          In his chemistry studies, he had found the best way to counteract the stimulus effect of Cocaine would be to find a suitable depressant. If he could get the levels right, he could sleep straight through the pain and wake up in a day’s time in a shade as close to normal as Sherlock could manage.

          He tapped the list in his pocket, a full itemisation of every dosage from the last two days. The last entry was what he had come to the bar to find – morphine. He had heard that there was a crooked nurse selling supplies out back of the loos. And so he waited.

          There was no reason for Sherlock to notice Molly’s friend Meena walk past. And there was no one to keep Molly company while she idly played with her cocktail straw. Sherlock was a man on a mission, and Molly wasn’t even on his radar.

          After watching for a few minutes, Sherlock noticed two people exiting the back door into the alleyway. Everything about them screamed drug deal. Their smiles too fake, the pace of their gait too quick. The distance between them, so obviously suspicious of each other.

          Sherlock guessed that the shorter one was the dealer while the taller of the two men had the dark lines under his eyes (not to mention the tell-tale bruises on his arms) of a user. He waited for the user to return back through the doorway before walking out to the alley in search of the man who could supply what he needed.

          “What do you want?” the short, stocky man, muttered. He was clearly a new graduate of nurses college, judging from the still unmarked skin on his knuckles, not yet calloused from the lifting, carrying and washing required on the job.

          “I’m having trouble sleeping,” Sherlock smirked. “I thought you might be able to help me out.”

          The nurse looked him up and down, “Try laying off the coke.”

          Sherlock wasn’t amused. “Do you have something or not?”

          “I might. What are you after?”

          “Morphine.”

          The short man shrugged his shoulders. “All out, I’m afraid.”

          “Damnit,” Sherlock yelled, slamming his fist into the wall.

          “Hey,” the nurse said in calm tones. He probably was a favourite with his patients if this was his bedside manner, “I’ve got something else. A little stronger.”

          “What is it?” Sherlock ignored the urgency with which the words came out.

          “Heroin.”

          That certainly wasn’t on Sherlock’s list.

          And so it was that on one night, in the one location, in two separate worlds, the life of William Sherlock Scott Holmes changed. While Will was leaving the pub arm-in-arm with the woman he had already decided would be the love of his life, Sherlock lay in an alleyway around the corner convulsing in the midst of an overdose.


End file.
